J. B. Yeats: Letters to His Son W. B. Yeats and Others
DUTTON, $4.00
THESE letters are so stimulating that one sits, pencil in hand, making frequent underlinings. They are the observations of a good man, a sound artist and critic, a rich mmd, a responsive heart. And the stylo almost brings back the living voice of an eager conversationalist.
J. B. Yeats’s philosophy of life and art was based on the individual—and on the emotional, rather than the intellectual, individual. ‘"And happiness . . . what is it? I say it is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing or that, but simply yroteth. We are happy when wo are growing.” This growth begins in the senses, “that is, in the concrete — and then crowns itself in the spirit, the richer the concrete the richer afterwards the abstract.”
In 1921 he wrote to his son: “Had you stayed with me and not left me for Lady Gregory you would have loved and adored the concrete life for which as I know von have a real affection. What would have resulted? Realistic and poetical plays — poetry in closest and most intimate union with the positive realities and complexities of life.” Although J. B. Yeats had loyally written to his daughter in 1912, “On the whole, I am very glad that Lady Gregory got Willie, he had been restive about flic relationship. He was too much the admirer of his son’s poetry to wish it diverted into Lady Gregory’s magnetic zone. Eventually W. B. Yeats, who acknowledged that he and his father were in telepathic communication. ' adopted criteria very close to those expressed in these letters.
J. B. Yeats lived in America. New York specifically, from 1907 until his death in 1922. His love of America never faltered, but his dream of her as a nation which would in time produce “the greatest poetry and the greatest art was soon dissipated. Four years before his death he acknowledged “America leads the world,” but she “will pay for it a great price. She loses literature and art. and poetry — I mean of the great kind, the kin/1 that matters Nevertheless, he loved the people and the land, and delighted to express this — especially to English friends. “There are many lovely things in America, and I would advise any Englishman as soon as he has finished his University education to come here that he may cleanse himself of English vulgarity.”
Doubtless one reason for tin* old man’s enthusiasm was that “Hope, the great divinity, is domiciled in America.” Yeats subsisted on hope. It is touching and laughable to note how often lie boasted of triumphs yet to come. “If I live another six months I am quite sure everyone will see an immense change in my fortunes.” Again. “Two Fortune-tellers, nay three . . . predict for me flic most tremendous success.” Later still. “I am in my 75th year and feel that life is just beginning; 45 years ago a lady cunning about llie future t.old me that I would not win success I ill i was very old and that then it would he universal success.” ITe was in his eighty-third year when, suddenly, he died, the pot at t he end of the rainbow still just, beyond Ids grasp. Luckily, the rainbow was everything for him.
No review of these wonderful letters would be complete without this fragment wherein he sums up his beliefs: “Nothing is ever really lost, and if we could see our world and all that takes place on its surface, and see it from a distance and as if from the centre of the sun, we should find it to be a tine piece of machinery working to certain ends with an absolute precision. I had in my only philosophy a faith founded like that of Socrates upon the basis of my conscious ignorance — it is a sort of sublime optimism . . . I think it is the only doctrine for poets.” With this central theme in mind, the reader has a key to the wit. and observations ami convictions lie is to encounter.
ROBERT HILLYER